CHD Awareness Week

It's CHD awareness week. That's Congenital Heart Defect awareness week. C.H.I.N. is a national organization that provides reliable information, support services, financial assistance and resources to families of children with congenital heart defects and acquired heart disease, adults with congenital heart defects, and the professionals who work with them. I recently came across their fan page on Facebook, and decided to blog about CHD because it effects our family greatly.

Brooke has several heart defects one is Patent Ductous Arteriosus or PDA. She will have surgery to close it soon. Below is what a normal heart looks like and the picture on the right shows a heart with a PDA. This heart defect is most likely due to her being born so premature. The cardiologists had discussed closing it while she was in the NICU, but they decided to wait until she was older to see if it would close on its own. Now that she's 4, the odds of it closing are slim to none, so surgery is necessary. The valve that goes directly to the lungs is open. If she were to ever develop bacterial pneumonia it could go into her heart. This obviously would not be good, so we're hoping to have surgery soon. It's one less thing that we will have to worry about.

Brooke also has a Ventrical Septal Defect or VSD. She actually has several. A ventricular septal defect (VSD) is a defect in the septum between the right and left ventricle. The septum is a wall that separates the heart’s left and right sides. Septal defects are sometimes called a “hole” in the heart. It’s the most common congenital heart defect in the newborn; it’s less common in older children and adults because some VSDs close on their own. We have been waiting to see if these holes will close on their own, and they are getting smaller. The doctor says they are now the size of a hair. We will continue to watch them and make sure they close on their own.

Brooke's new EKG shows that her Patent Foramen Ovale has now closed. It's gone! Yeah! The foramen ovale is a small hole located in the atrial septum that is used during fetal circulation to speed up the travel of blood through the heart. When in the womb,a baby does not use it's own lungs for oxygen-rich blood, it relies on the mother to provide oxygen rich blood from the placenta through the umbilical cord to the fetus. Therefore, blood can travel from the veins to the right side of the baby's heart and cross to the left side of the heart through the foramen ovale and skip the trip to the baby's lungs.

Normally the foramen ovale closes at birth when increased blood pressure on the left side of the heart forces the opening to close.
If the atrial septum does not close properly, it is called a patent foramen ovale. This type of defect generally works like a flap valve, only opening during certain conditions when there is more pressure inside the chest. This increased pressure occurs when people strain while having a bowel movement, cough, or sneeze.
If the pressure is great enough, blood may travel from the right atrium to the left atrium. If there is a clot or particles in the blood traveling in the right side of the heart, it can cross the PFO, enter the left atrium, and travel out of the heart and to the brain (causing a stroke) or into a coronary artery (causing a heart attack).